The DK Foundation

Conversations with the Magi 1

Suzanne Rough is the principal of the D.K. Foundation. In this series of articles, she will be recording excerpts of recent conversations with the Magian astrologers of Northern Afghanistan, the spiritual descendants of the three wise men from ‘beyond the Euphrates’ (as Eliphas Levi put it in The Aquarian Gospel) who followed the star to Bethlehem to find the child Jesus.

When the Foundation was set up early in 1998, D.K. said that he hoped we would be able to establish a working connection with the Magian astrologers of Northern Afghanistan. Owing to the amount going on at that time, I did not ask many questions about the nature of this arrangement, or indeed about the Magi themselves but I had the impression that a ‘working connection’ was going to involve more than sending out a few chummy emails.

In the summer of 1998, we were contacted with some formality by a young Magian who was to be the intermediary. His function was Fourth Ray. He was to try and combine in himself the two kinds of consciousness: the solar consciousness of the Magi and the lunar consciousness of the Westerner.

From him, I learned that the Magian tradition is part of a line of transmission from the Solar Logos. This line of transmission was the flame that ignited both the Chaldean and Persian astrological traditions which then, over time, developed separate identities.

The Magi are concerned only with the four highest planes of consciousness, accessed through man’s highest chakras, the four head centres. Their astrology is concerned with stellar rather planetary influences. All Magian astrologers are, to use the terminology of the Theosophical tradition, Initiates of the third degree and above. Solar consciousness is future oriented and has little or no interest in the past. (D.K. has said since that eventually humanity as a whole will have this perspective. The veil that, for us with our lunar consciousness, is currently over the future will one day obscure the past. He makes this statement in Esoteric Astrology also). The Magi have no interest in the personality, which operates on the three lowest planes of consciousness (or, therefore, with horoscopy which serves the personality).

The reality of this came home to me with some force over the matter of a journey of (to my mind) extraordinary length and difficulty which was to be undertaken by a rather elderly Magian. My Western mind instantly focused on the unending hours of boredom and discomfort to be endured on this slow journey which, apparently, he and his mule did time and time again, over snow covered, mountainous terrain. But, I realised at once that, within this elderly man, there was no ‘I’ to think what this journey would mean to him personally. It needed to be done. There was nothing more to be said, nothing more to think about, no opinion to be indulged.

I learned later that the Magi are made deeply uneasy by Western ideas of individuality, focused as they are upon the personality. To them it is involutionary and they wish to keep themselves free from its taint.

This was to be the reason why the first attempts to set up a working arrangement broke down. I was aware of the practical difficulties of two different kinds of consciousness trying to communicate but I was unaware of the scale of the opposition from within the Magian ranks, not to the idea of communication with Westerners per se but of a Magi trying to incorporate the two kinds of consciousness which would unavoidably result in him acquiring a sense of individuality à la West. This issue caused a serious division within the Magi brotherhood.

It is said of Abraham Lincoln that, during the American Civil War, he did not smile for a whole year, so great was his inner torment. And so it was for my young Magian friend also and, basically, for the same reason. As 1998 wore on, he became more and more withdrawn; more and more wretched until one day he simply disappeared. He had lost faith in his role as intermediary and in the wisdom of the project itself. Perhaps the feared taint was rubbing off and the seeds of self-doubt and self-consciousness, those insidious and inevitable by-products of personality consciousness had begun to sprout. Whatever, the experiment was over. This was a couple of weeks before Christmas (1998).

D.K. said that the implications of this were more far-reaching than simply the breakdown of our working arrangement, but he made little of it. But then, how many missed opportunities has a Master witnessed? And maybe he could see what was coming round the corner.

Two years passed, when out of the blue, almost to the exact day that D.K. announced that the experiment was over, we were contacted by the elderly Magian (who had made the long mule journey), to say that his people wished to try and revive the working arrangement. It was perceived as necessary. Again, it was a case of something that ‘needed to be done’. But this time things were to be conducted differently: there would be no intermediary. He would speak from the Magian end of the spectrum of consciousness and I would speak from ours, i.e., we would remain in our respective spheres and see how we could join up and what we could achieve.

Does anyone remember the comedy sketch by the late Gerald Hofnung about the builder going up the ladder and meeting the bucket of bricks on its pulley coming down? I certainly recalled it when I heard this proposal, because I felt like the builder. But this was not the cause of my initial reservations about this new project.

One can get wiser as well as older in two years and, although I do not consider that I call any of the shots in this arrangement with the Magi, I said openly what I feel and that is that we Westerners do not need more knowledge. What we need to learn is how to better understand and to use what we have been given.

By way of response he said that, if humanity better understood the ever changing shape of its purpose, this would provide the means of improved co-operation on all levels of our solar system.

Of course, his argument won the day. I was interested to know why he wanted to do this through the Foundation and he said that it was because we take astrology and an awareness of purpose into ordinary life, and make it part of personality consciousness. He has no experience of this and can have no more direct involvement, but he recognises that it needs to be done to serve the Solar Logos. (The Magi will always talk about the Sun when we talk about our planet Earth. They have planetary consciousness. For them, planetary consciousness is the second aspect of consciousness, the first being egoic consciousness. Our first aspect is the separated state of personality consciousness and our second, egoic consciousness).

His people live a life apart, in the fastness of the mountains which form the westerly tip of the Hindu Kush. He expresses surprise and an admiration that I find touching that I can be involved in serious astrology and yet engaged in the rough and tumble of everyday, modern life. Perhaps it is the same kind of surprise and admiration that I experience when I consider his solitary mountain journeys. Of course, the circumstances of everyday life depress one’s vibration and keep one functioning at a lower, slower rate but this is reality for the vast majority of humanity. This is the place to make oneself useful - or at least this is so if one is working on the Third Ray. I tell him not to over estimate my high mindedness or my sensitivity.

So, our communications have begun. Neither of us knows where they will go but they have begun well. We keep to our respective spheres. I ask him little about the Magian way of life and there are many things I will never ask because I have no need to know. Mere curiosity is not reason enough to invade the privacy of this tradition which has kept itself hidden from view throughout modern times. When recently I asked D.K. what the Magi think about the Taliban regime he replied that they have no views on it because they do not involve themselves with any political activity.

I am just grateful that my Magian contact has made it possible for us to communicate in this way. Interestingly, the formality has gone. We are now engaged in a simple exchange: two people approaching one situation from different corners and I no longer feel like Hofnung’s builder.

I have asked him whether he had any objection to me recording and transcribing our communications and he said that he and his people assumed that this would be done.

So, next month, we will be putting up the first of the transcriptions, an exchange about the planetoid we call Chiron, and which the Magi view as a member of the comet family, a ‘star of direction’ on a task assigned by the higher, stellar world.

Of my friend, the young Magian, I have heard nothing these past two years but, looking back, it can be seen just how well he fulfilled his Fourth Ray function: out of the conflict between opposing forces and breakdown of the equilibrium, new energy and new opportunities have flowed.

It is this energy that Chiron is bringing into our lives.

December 2000